It is December 31st and the Slotovino Awards are upon us once again.
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| The scene is set. |
Categories and winners, 2022;
Wine Personality of the year: Fra. Rino Sgarbossa
Best Red: Conti Capponi, Villa Calcinaia Mammolo
Best English White: Ashdown Chasselas
Best English Red: Halfpenny Green, Penny Red Pinot Noir/Rondo/Regent
Best Show/Wine Festival: The Vineyard and Winery Show
Biggest Surprise: Bardolino Novello
Best Vine Nursery/Nurseries: Pepinieres Guillaume and Rebschule Freytag
Best PIWI discovery: Rinot
Best New Winemerchant: Alzbeta Novotna, Wines of Bohemia
Best Winemerchant: Hedonism
Best restaurant Winelist: Brawn
Predictions for 2023: Sparkling Tea
Worst Duty Free shop: All
Best wine supplies shop: G.M. Luico Enologia, Genova
Special Award for the re-estalishment of endangered grape variety/Varieties: Joszef Szentesi
Book: Which Winegrape Varieties are grown where?: Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen
Indispensible Website 2022: Wein.Plus
Various accolades and thanks to...
Wine Personality of the year
Fratello Rino Sgarbossa of the Frati Francescani Minori di San Francesco della Vigna, Venice.
Fra. Rino Sgarbossa is our Wine Personality of the year. This award may be surprising.
The most surprised would be Fra. Rino himself because his main job at San Francesco della Vigna in Venice is Director of the Biblioteca San Francesco della Vigna, perhaps the oldest and largest in Venice with over 200,000 books dating back to the 14th century.
Fra. Rino took us on a tour of the vineyard and library together with a group of Dutch historians. He protested that the vineyard was managed by others who had re-planted mostly with Glera and would be selling the wine when it was ready and that he disn't know much else.
In fact we think he was following Saint Francis's rule;
'I frati siano pacifici e modesti, mansueti e umili' (Let the friars be peaceful and modest, meek and humble')
because he knew a great deal about the vineyard's history, the effects of the soil flooding with briney water at aqua alta, the grafting and irrigation that had taken place and so forth. For the record the plantings had previously included Raboso, Marzemino, Malvasia and Verduzzo. This made sense because until recent incursions of intermnational varieties and Pinot Grigio, Raboso and Verduzzo had been the Venetians preferred wine grapes. Even earlier, Teroldego and Refosco had been mentioned.
In general, winegrowers andthe people around wine have in our experience and until now been lovely people. Fra. Rino is as kind and dear of this group of people and so may serve as an exemplar. It is for this that we would like to award him Wine Personality of the year, not that he would accept, we are sure.
Best Sparkling wine
Mariotti Abbatia Fortana
Best White
Telti-Kuruk Grande Reserve, Shabo Wine Company, Odesa Povince, Ukraine.
Our Slotovino Awards 2022 are here. We didn't post between March and November but that didn't mean we paused our researches. We were busy emerging from the pandemic so posting took place all at once when we had time. In fact our 26 posts for this year are exactly double those of 2021.
In the wider world the news has been of the terrible war in Ukraine but before we are accused of mounting our own special operation in favour of Ukranian wine, let us deny any bias when we award a Ukranian grape, Telti-Kuruk the discovery of the year.
In general, discoveries of 2022 have been more numerous in white wines as you will see. Telti-Kuruk came as a bolt from the blue. It is a fabulous variety. we set about trying to import a case but unsurprisingly there were difficulties. At present no shipping companies are operating from Ukraine. However, goods are getting through. After contacting a winemerchant in Kiiv and Drinks+, the Ukrainian wine organisation we finally made contact with the maker of this particular bottle, Shabo.
Shabo has managed to send wine by the pallet to the UK which is an astounding and heartwarming achievement. Pallets go via Poland and cost E.2,400 a time.They might be able to add a case for us in their next shipment.
After some headscratching we had an inspiration and checked with Hedonism whether they had any wines from this grape and indeed they had. Hedonism was founded in 2012 by Evgeny Chichvarkin who owns it still. He lives inLondon and is a critic of Vladimir Putin. Hedonism no longer sells wine from Russia but offer Ukranian wines instead.
Beykush Winery is the maker of Hedonism's Telti-Kuruk. Beykush was founded in 2010 and is situated near Odesa.
We thought we had seen an entry on Telti-Kuruk (aka Telti-Kyryk) in 'Wine Grapes' but that must have been wishful thinking.
We have been turning increasingly to 'Wein Plus' recently. They really are a terrific source of information. On Telti-Kuruk they have the following entry;
'The white grape variety originates from Armenia. Synonyms are Telti Kourouk, Telti Kuruk, Tilki Kuyrugu and Tilky Rairuk. The parentage is unknown. The vine is used as a wine grape and table grape. It is cultivated in the Ukraine. In 2010, 246 hectares were still reported, but in 2016 no more stock was reported (Kym Anderson).'
Is it possible the 246 ha of 2010 have been dug up? We hope not.
Best red
Conti Capponi Villa Calcinaia Mammolo.
We first bought this in 2020, together with Villa Calcinaia's Sanforte and Occhiorosso. We presented these last two at the Athenaeum tasting last November listing them as follows;
Villa Calcinaia Occhiorosso. Rosso dei Colli della Toscana Centrale I.G.T. Italy. 2018. 13.5%
“Roberto...Bandinelli discovered the variety while talking one day to Nunziata Grassi, an 85 year old who took him around her vineyards and showed him Occhiorosso… The minute Bandinelli showed me what to look for in an Occhiorosso grapevine I was immediately able to recognise it without fail in any other vineyard I visited that day with him.”
Ian D’Agata, Native Wine Grapes of Italy.
Purple Pages gave this 16.5 and mentioned its 'charming personality,'
Villa Calcinaia, Sanforte. Rosso dei Colli della Toscana Centrale I.G.T. Italy. 2018. 13.5%
Sanforte is listed separately from Sangiovese in Ian D’Agata’s authoritative ‘Native Wine Grapes of Italy. He tells us that he name is a contraction of Sangiovese Forte but everything about the variety differs from Sangiovese; it is more fertile, produces more bunches, ripens earlier, piles up sugar in its berries more notably and makes a more massive wine, yet one that retains elegance. Villa Calcinaia is the only winery making a monovarietal from this grape.
Jancis Robinson gave this a score of 17 and found it 'really interesting,'
To be truly honest* these were nice wines but to our taste not as distinctive as we had hoped they would be\
The Mammolo on the other hand was truly and honestly individual. The Athenaeum tasting had been for varieties made by one producer only so we were never going to include our Mammolo in that category, hence its earlier consumption.
Mammolo turns out to be the same as Sciaccarello which is strange because our previous experience of Schiaccarello had been quite different. This may be because according to D'Agata, Corsican Sciaccarello or Sciaccarellu is usually blended with 30% Cabernet Sauvignon.
*The expression 'Truly honest' was first heard from an American lad at Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre this year and thinking of the Trump years in America, it seemed that merely 'honest' might now denote something that could be f;exible in meaning and that if you want to be honest you now have to qualify the term with the adj. 'truly.' The context of the lad's employment of the term was 'If I'm truly honest I don't want to climb up all those stairs.'
Footnote
Attempting to buy a couple of bottles of Villa Calcimaia's Mammolo last summer we slid off a dirt track, landed with two wheels in a ditch and had to be pulled out. That provided the entertainment for the rest of the afternoon but not the bottles we wanted, not the visit to the winery we had planned. We imported 6 bottles subsequently and opened one of them with our Xmas turkey. All well that ended well.
Best English WhiteAshdown Chasselas 
Best English RedHalfpenny Green Penny Red Pinot Noir.Rondo/Regent
Again, if we are truly honest, we haven't tasted many English or Welsh reds this year and there were
fewer reds than whites at the Vineyard and Winery Show. Halfpenny Green was one of several wineries
we had never heard of but which are serious producers even if their wines are available only from the cellar door and a limited number of merchants.
This blend of Pinot Noir, Rondo and Regent seems to be a winner. We enjoyed the wine which is not something one can say about some of the reds to be had in this country.
Best Show/Wine FestivalThe Vineyard and Winery Show
Biggest SurpriseBardolino Novello 
We have gone into the 'problem' of Bardolino Novello before. It's always intriguing when something
is so comprehensively reviled by all and sundry. So attempts actually to taste this rarity became a bit of an obsession. We love Bardolino for its charm and unpretentiosness (viz. Valpolicella) and we like nouveau wines having made some ourselves.
While still trying to work out how to get our hands on a bottle of Bardolino Novello an amazing coincidence occurred as happens from time to time. Tam Currin of Purple Pages suddenly discovered this wine and wrote a glowing appreciation of several bottles she had been tasting thanks to the Consorzio di Bardolino Novello.
Writing to the Consorzio to ask where we could buy these wines (Winesracher had not been very helpful), they replied by sending us three bottles as a gift. One of these in particular was memorable and we recommend any naysayer to try it before dismissing Bardolino Novello.
Best Vine NurseryPepinieres Guillaume and Rebschule Freytag, joint winners 
the bare-rooted vines ready for planting. Both Pepinieres Guillaume ad Rebschule Freytag
produce a plethora of varieties. Freytag concentrates more on the PIWI varieties and
Guillaume on the French heritage ones although both have plenty of others on offer.
We also marvel at how cheaply they manage to sell their plants. Consider that for 2 Euros or
thereabouts you can have a plant that will last for decades and produce many bottles of wine.
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Best PIWI discoveryRinot
At the Rebschule Freytag stand at the 2022 Vineyard and Winery Show (Detling, near Maidstone in
Kent) there was a bottle of Rinot on tasting and we thought this wine was very interesting indeed.
Rinot is a Czech cross between Merzling and a combination of Seyve Villard and Pinot Gris. There are
therefore genes from Vitis Vinifera, Vitis Berlandii, Vitis Rupestris and Vitis Linecumii in the DNA.
This is positively the first vine we have encountered with Vitis Linecumii. In fact we've never heard of
that species although without it neither Chambourcin, Vidal Blanc or several other varieties would not exist which would be a pity.
What a complicated business this vine breeding is but what a miracle that something
as lovely as Rinot can come out of it.
Best new wine merchantAlzbeta Novotna, Wines of Bohemia
Ms. Novotna is an energetic and well-informed new winemerchant specialising in the wines of Bohemia. We are fortunate that she has chosen to be with us here in the UK and to be bringing us wines of individuality. She is not the only one we have come across this year; NIKI specialising in Serbian wines is another but Wines of Bohemia is more recently established and so receives our accolade as Best New Merchant.
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Best wine merchantHedonism
Founded by a Russian oligarch, Evgeny Chichvarkin apparently because he was surprised there was
nowhere in the city you could buy a case of Petrus at short notice for those impromptu
dinners you might want to throw if a fellow oligarch happened to drop in.
OK that may be exaggerating but it was apparently something along those lines.
We on the Slotovino awards committee have a similar attitude to wine snobism as Nigella Lawson
has to the concept of Fine Dining (makes her want to lie on the floor and weep).
However, Hedonism is not really despicable at all. In fact it is replete with interesting bottles
representative of all sorts of territories at normal prices. Furthermore it has a staff as
numerous as they are knowledgeable and the place is a very pleasant spot for an hour or two of
bottle fondling and education. You can even walk out with something interesting under £20
or that special bottle costing four figures if you happen to have made a killing on financial markets that morning.
Our last purchase there was the Ukranian Telti-Kuruk at around £23 as mentioned above. Any merchant carrying that bottle gets our vote.
Best restaurant winelist
Brawn. This Columbia Road so-called 'neighbourhood' restaurant is as they say 'worth crossing London for', not least for the winelist. Originally set up by Les Caves de Pyrene many of the wines may still be obtained from them. The list is too extensive to check but whoever has sourced them and wherever they come from, the result is everything you could wish for, even though some prices are steep. Predictions for 2023Sparkling Tea!
here in the esteemed Slotovino 2022 Awards?
Allow us to explain. Apparently 0% alcohol 'wines' are expected to grow 35% by 2023 according to Wein.Plus. Plenty of winemakers are removing the alcohol from wine by various means but what is left is mostly unsatisfying and it might even be questionable as wine at all. Then there are the beverages using ingredients with only a tenuous connection with wine such as vinegar. Such concoctions tend to taste like, well - vinegar.
When we first saw the words 'Sparkling Tea' we thought the world had finally gone mad. Worse we
imagined this was some kind of excess as imagined by Mrs. Doyle of 'Father Ted.' It is not necessary
to go into the English obsession with tea in this blog. It gets more extreme by the day. We find ourselves siding with the aristocrat described by Bill Bryson as forbidding his family to drink tea. They of course did so secretly but one day he surprised them and threw their cups and teapot out of the window.
So what is the story? Well it takes place in a fantastic restaurant in Mousehole, Cornwall called
2, Fore Street, In keeping with the craze for non-alcoholic drinks there was an enticing list of cocktails
(mocktails) and such to satisfy teetotallers, drivers and those just wanting a healthy life. Among these
drinks was a sparkling tea so we thought 'let's see what this 'connerie' is all about and ordered a shot.
This came out of a Champagne type bottle and was poured into a Champagne flute. All quite impressive and seemly given the cost of the drink.
The colour was rather brown which was not unexpected but the taste was nothing like tea. Apparently tea is only a base for the addition of all sorts of botanicals and flavourings and in this case it was all rather pleasant even if it was rather off-dry. It may not have tasted like wine but it looked like wine and had the same refreshing effect as some sparkling wines without the alcohol kick of course. It was something to sip rather than gulp down. Definitely not a thirst-quensher.
We are not hooked on Sparkling Tea but we can understand those who could be. So if you imagine this
catching on the sky is the limit. Think of all those who are forbidden alcohol, all those who choose not to imbibe alcohol, young people wanting something special to drink. At last something 'grown up' and
not unsophisticated.
At the moment Sparkling Tea is a luxury item. That is a good way to start off. Prices can come down
but it should maintain its cache.
Worst Airport Duty FreeAll - Malaga, Barcelona, Pisa, Marseille, Genova. All as bad as eachother. What's going on? Best Wine Supplies shop G.M. Luico, Enologia, GenovaThis is a new category. Normally a wine/beer supplies shop would not interest wine drinkers but everyone needs at least a corkscrew and maybe some gear for preserving wine such as Vacuvin,
Corks are available in different sizes and 3 different qualities at between about E.1 and E.2 each.
We also bought some yeasts for re-starting stuck fermentations and so on. Rosanna Luico presided over
all this stuff and was a mine of information and good advice.
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| Carlo Luico and his daughter Rosanna, direct descendents of the founders in 1855. |
Special award for the re-establishment of an endangered variety/varietiesJoszef Szentesi. 
As a child, József Szentesi showed little interest in working in his father’s 1ha vineyard in Budaörs, 10km from Budapest. But, in 1998, he decided to make his own wine, training himself and gaining inspiration from winemakers in Burgundy. Currently, he manages 16ha on the slopes of Lake Velencei, 50km from Hungary’s capital, at an altitude of 175m. He grows 30 different grape varieties – including 20 that are extremely rare.
"I also have traditional varieties, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Kadarka from the reds; Riesling, Zengő, Sauvignon Blanc, some Furmint and Kéknyelű from the whites. In an old publication written in 1880, I read about the ancient first-, second-, and third-class grape varieties. I was surprised that I hadn't even heard about many of the first-class ones. I have chosen 10 red and 10 white varieties; I purchased the rooted grafts from the Winery Research Faculty of University of Pécs, and Dr Pál Kozma (grape breeder) helped with the grafting on. In 2001, I read an article about ‘Buda Red’ wine, which is a blend from Kadarka and Csókaszőlő grapes that was one of the most important export commodities of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. I decided that I wanted to make this wine. In 2003, we grafted 300 grapevines of Csókaszőlő (below), from which I made 40 litres of wine in 2004. In 2005, Hungarian winemakers visited me and were fascinated by the wine, because since 130 years no one made wine from this variety. Some of them also took grafts, for example, Vylyan winery from Villány.
How wonderful is that?
Most interesting wine trendNew resistant and hardy grape varieties for classic apellations. BookWhich Winegrape Varieties are grown where? by Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen.This is by no means a new publication although it has been updated. Of course the data is changing all the time but coming to it late in the day doesn't change its fascination. The book is quoted frequently but we are ashamed to say we hadn't taken a look at it until now. You can buy it at over £45 but if you are not in the mood to do that, you can download the 2013 or 2016 edition free of charge.
Kym Anderson re-defines the concept of Renaissance Man and measures of industry, breadth of interest and productivity. According to Wikipedia he is an economist specialising in trade policy and issues relating to the World Trade Organisation.
Studies;
University of New England
Teaching;
Australian Defence College
Periods of leave at
International Economics Institute and Rural Economics Institutes of Korea
Positions
Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London
Journal of International Economics Law
He has published around 40 books and more than 900 journal articles and chapters in other books.
Eminence personified. -
Our award for 'Which Winegrape Varieties are grown where?' is given for its mighty snapshot of statistics relating to just that: charts from 53 named counries (including unexpected places such as Myanmar and Norway) and 'Rest of World' comprising 9 countries showing
Total Grapevine Area Hervested
Share of World Grapevine Area Harvested
Total Winegrape Area
Share of World Winegrape Area
Share of Wine-Grapes in Total Grapevine Area (%)
Share of National Agricultural Crop Area under Grapevine
Grape Yield (tonnes per ha.)
Total Grape Production (Kt)
Share of World Grape Production (%)
We were especially amused by this chart showing UK Triomphe D'Alsace as top of the Varietal Intensity Index relative to the world in 2010.
A dubious honour.
Indispensible website 2022
Wein.Plus
There are many good websites you need to research wine. Purple Pages, Winesearcher are
two of the indispensible ones. To these we would like to add Wein.Plus which has been going
since 1998. It bills itself as the Wine Platform for Wine Lovers. It has an indispensible
Lexicon which it says is the largest wine encyclopedia in the world with 26,013 entries. It is especially good on grape varieties.
There are pages on Producers, Regions, Wine Basics, Find and Buy, plus Reviews, News, a
Business Directory and 'Events,' but you probably know all that.
Why did it take us so long to join up (free) and add Wein.Plus to our arsenal?
Various accolades and thanks toRosanna Luic, Hannah Tovey, Oleksandra Hryhorieva, Viktoria Palinkash, Irina DiachenkovaValentina Parsaieva, Giorgi Iukuridze, Bill - digger, Francesco D'Affano, Francesco Visentin, Marta Poian, Paola Balli, Martina Olivo, Daniela Shahab, Baptiste Ducassou, Manuel Casagrande, Martin Distl, Paolo Addis, Elisabetta Barberis, Angelo Peretti, Alessandra Zambonin, Sam Doncaster, Volker Freytag, Alzbeta Novotna, Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, Andrew Jefford, Massimo Grasso, Emilia Holman, Elena Moreno, Emanuela Cattaneo, Elvira Ackermann, Tamas Koerner, Christian Gelbe-Haussen,
